Four boats docked at the Man of War Jetty on Monday, bringing ashore 60 cadets of the National Cadet Corps who were river-borne for the past 10 days.

The 40 boys and 20 girls are members of the West Bengal and Sikkim directorate’s sailing expedition. And if they were beaming while being received by Lieutenant General Raman Dhawan, general officer commanding, Bengal, and Major General Shyam Srivastava, additional director general (ADG) for the directorate, it was because the expedition had not only been a success but was also the fastest in recent memory for the NCC here.

The 430km voyage was flagged off from Farakka on September 6. Officials said the usual time taken over the past 15 years or so has been 20 days. “This year, we promised ADG sir that we would try to reduce the duration,” said Commander Rakesh Kaushik, the commanding officer. That meant doing away with the customary break of a day or two at every other halt.

“We stopped for the night at seven places on the way. At Jangipur, we had to halt for an extra day as a swimming contest was on in the river and at our last stop Dakshineswar, we needed a day to prepare for the closing ceremony.”

The expedition carried two messages — ‘Save the girl child’ and ‘Clean Ganga’.

The speedy voyage should hold the directorate in good stead at the Republic Day camp next January. Expeditions from each directorate are marked on a scale of 10 and the points are added to the multi-discipline aggregate, based on which the winning directorate is announced at the Prime Minister’s rally on January 27. The local directorate had come seventh over-all and had topped in the games category this January. It could not be known what its rank was in sailing.

Most cadets were trained for two months at Rabindra Sarobar ahead of the expedition. “But the first day in the river was tough. The current was much stronger and our rowing was not synchronising,” recalled Kusumkumari Singh, 17, from Behala.

The cadets were accompanied by three officers in safety boats and three parade instructors. “They had to fight the current, the heat, counterwind and rain,” Kaushik said.

“We ran aground midstream for 45 minutes at Chinsurah. Our boys stood in waist-high water and pulled the boat out,” recalled First Officer Uma Mukhopadhyay, who was in charge of the girl cadets.

The cadets sailed in four boats and competed against each other. The boat Angre came first, with Abhimanyu being the runner-up. Mrityunjoy Singh of the team was declared best puller among the boys. Among the girls it was Swarnalekha Patra of the boat Shivaji. “My father wants me to join the Army,” she said.